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People sometimes wonder what Jesus was doing in the 40 day period sandwiched between His resurrection and ascension. We may not know all the answer to that, but we are given a lot of information in the first chapter of Acts.
During that time, Luke says, Jesus gave four things to his disciples: Commandments, Proofs, Insights, and Promises.
What makes this unique is that each of these is given only to believers, no matter how we would like to stretch it or spin it. Certain blessings and responsibilities are provided only to people of faith, and no one else.
The fact that the four gifts of Acts 1:1-4 are given only to believers sends a much-needed message to the Lord's people today.
We're supposing here.
Suppose your church assembled a group composed of the following people: the pastor and staff, the office staff, the deacons, Sunday School teachers, committee members, and program leaders. And suppose I have 30 minutes to say anything on my heart. We meet in a room ideal for that size a group with no electronic devices or amplifications. I set up my easel in front and begin.
Now, supposing I had the undivided attention of the group, I would begin by telling this from Scripture.
A few weeks before Moses retired from the scene and Joshua took over, not long before Joshua would lead God's people out of the wilderness into the Promised Land of Canaan, Moses had final words of preparation for them. The Old Testament book of Deuteronomy is the essence of what he shared, a recap of where they had been and what had happened in their recent past.
One thing in particular Moses felt he needed to impress on God's people as they were about to possess an incredible territory described as "a land of milk and honey." You and I would call this a warning, in fact.
"You are about to come into a land filled with everything you've ever wanted. You'll move into houses you did not build.
You'll harvest crops you didn't plant or cultivate.
You'll drink from wells you did not dig.
You'll gather grapes from vineyards and olives from groves you did not plant."
"You will eat and be satisfied for the first time in your memory. And when that happens...
Beware lest you forget the Lord."
Prosperity has a way of fogging up the spiritualities. Deadening the spirit. Dulling the memories. Derailing the well-intentioned.
Do not forget God. (Deuteronomy 6:12)
Do not desert God. (Deut. 6:14)
Do not test God. (Deut. 6:16)
Rather, be careful to obey Him. Do what is right in His sight.
And just in case anyone did not get that the first time, Moses repeated these words in Deuteronomy 8:12-14.
Leaders, your church is prosperous in a hundred ways. Your community is thriving. Personally, you are living at a higher standard than your grandparents ever dreamed of attaining. Furthermore, you do it with hardly a thought, as though this were the norm and anyone could do it if they worked as hard as you do.
You and I have forgotten how blessed we are.
Leaders, it's time once again for you to:
--renew your thankfulness to God for His abundant blessings upon you, your church, your community, and this nation.
--recommit yourself to be faithful with what He has given you.
--restructure your lives to practice the faith you say you believe. The old structures (like some ancient bridges in this country!) do not hold up forever, but must be constantly inspected and often replaced.
Now, let me admit to you my minor disappointment with what Moses said.
(Southern Baptists are studying the parables of Matthew's Gospel in 2010, and as we've done for several years, I'm leaving a few thoughts on the subject and we'll have some cartoons here...if I can get them done. I was making better progress on the drawings before retiring, and since then I haven't had the time!)
Consult the various texts and commentaries on parables--there is no lack of them--and you'll find scholars are not in agreement on what constitutes one. Is a parable a story and always a story, the way they appear so often in Jesus' teaching? We think of "The Prodigal Son" and "The Good Samaritan," two of the Lord's parables that are so well-known they have contributed expressions to the everyday speech of cultures all over the world.
No one doubts that those are parables, but what about "You are the salt of the earth" and "you are the light of the world"? (Matthew 5) Are those parables, too?
What about "whoever hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on a rock"? (Matthew 7:24) That's not exactly a story, but more of a hypothetical situation. Most collections of parables include it.
At this point, my temptation is to issue something of a disclaimer and say, "Now, not being a Bible scholar, but merely a preacher of the Word, what I plan to do here is...." But it doesn't work that easily, does it? I am a Bible scholar, and so are you.
The word "scholar" does not mean "expert" but "student." And aren't you and I that?
This may give me the right to express my opinion on our Lord's parables, say, and that's what I am about to do. It does not, however, automatically make those statements carry equal weight with either the more learned or the more thoughtful. Readers should take everything I say (and all the writings of the "experts") to the Lord in prayer and not passively accept it as "gospel."
That said, here are my two statements for today....
One: for our purposes here, the Parables of Matthew will deal only with stories Jesus told, and not with metaphors, similes, and suppositions. That will allow us to limit the numbers to something more manageable.
Two: I'm suggesting as a way of looking at Jesus' parables that each of them answers a question.
Sometimes the question is evident such as in Luke 15 when critics attacked Jesus for "receiving sinners and eating with them." He told the parable we call "the prodigal son" to say why was He doing that. (Because they are lost!)
Sometimes the question is unspoken and we have to do a little sleuthing. And that's the fun part.
Take the seven parables of Matthew 13. And right away, we're faced with a difficulty....
I've decided that my sketching capacity limit is set at four hours.
From 10 am until 2 pm today I sat in the hallway of Baton Rouge's Crowne Plaza Hotel drawing participants in a statewide meeting of apprentices in various industries. One of the local businesses that participates hired me to represent them by sketching people on paper they printed for the occasion.
I did just fine for all four hours. But as I walked across the parking lot to my car, I realized I was pooped. I would not be good for anything the rest of the day. The 70 mile-drive home was about all I could have managed.
In mid-November, I'll be sketching fellow Baptists at the annual meeting of the Alabama Baptist Convention in Huntsville for a couple of days. The state paper--the Alabama Baptist--has printed a poster announcing the hours I'll be at their booth, from 9 to noon and from 1:30 until 4:30 that afternoon. That'll work. But I can promise that at 4:31, I willl head back to the hotel room and collapse and not be worth shooting the rest of the day.
Something occurred to me today while--once again--trying to help the subject I was drawing deal with low self-esteem. It happens so frequently, I can see it coming a mile away. The party reluctantly slides into the chair opposite me, looks in every direction except mine, and when I manage to get his/her attention, refuses to look me in the eye. Asked to look at me and smile, the party mumbles a variation of "I don't smile." Or, "I don't like my smile."
Today, I said on two or three occasions with more than a little impatience, "Look, I could understand that if you were 13 years old. But you're a grownup. Get over this. Everyone looks better with a smile, including me and definitely including you. Now, look me in the eye and show me a smile. You'll like the picture a lot better."
Then, when no one else was around, I tried something with this young woman.
Everyone I know who is a regular and faithful member of a church has something of a love/hate relation with it. So many things about our church we love; somel we hate.
Friends gave me a book with the title, "Lord, I Love Your Church, But...."
I would have bought it for the title alone.
The problem with the church today....
How many conversations have begun with those words, I wonder. Everyone has an opinion on the weakness of today's church, everyone sees her flaws, we all want her fixed and well and effective in our world.
Here is my take on the situation.
The major flaws in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ today are not the result of the devil's sabotage, the world's opposition, or competition from other religions, as serious as all these are.
The church's big problem is its friends.
This week's headlines announce that the local NBA team, the New Orleans Hornets, are optimistic about having a great year in spite of the 2-6 record they rang up during the just-ended pre-season.
What I wonder is which team in the league is NOT optimistic. I guarantee that this headline could apply to every one of the teams. In order to fill seats with paying customers, the team has to convince fans that "this could be our year." Ask any New Orleans Saints fan; we've bought into that hype for over 40 years now, with little to show for it.
Is this the year for the Saints? Could be. A lot of sports experts and all the fans think so. Meanwhile, we're optimistic.
The Richard Heene family fiasco is being played out before the world's cameras these days. According to today's news. Mrs. Mayumi Heene admits to the hoax of the 6-year-old in the balloon in order to get media attention for their family. And why did they want media attention, you ask. To land a reality show on television.
Would that work? No one knew, but Mr. Heene was optimistic.
Now, I'm all in favor of optimism considering that its opposite, pessimism, is a real downer. But there must be some grounds or reason for the optimism.
Pastors and church leaders, take note.
Some years back I was delighted to meet Bruce McIver of Dallas, Texas. For years people had been asking me if we were related. The last names were pronounced the same way, but Bruce spelled it wrong. He was well-known throughout the country as the esteemed pastor of the Wilshire Baptist Church of Dallas.
What put Bruce "on the map" for a lot of people, however, was the book he wrote titled, "Stories I Couldn't Tell While I Was a Pastor." (As with almost every other book published in the last hundred years, you can buy it on line at your favorite source. Mine is www.alibris.com.)
I'd almost be willing to bet you that every pastor who read Bruce's book got at least two or three sermon illustrations out of it. It was that good. He followed it up with one titled "Just As Long As I'm Riding Up Front." (I would include a couple of them here but the best ones are fairly long and involved.)
Roy Smith was a Methodist preacher a long time before they put "United" in their name. His book of "personal experiences worth retelling" is called "Tales I Have Told Twice." Dr. Smith died in 1963, the book was published a year later, and I bought it for a dollar a few years later. In the flyleaf, I have scribbled, "The best-spent dollar!"
And now, Dan Crawford has given us his stories. "Mud Hen in a Peacock Parade" has as its subtitle:"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Heaven."
Dr. Crawford is senior professor of evangelism and missions and occupies the chair of prayer (emeritus) at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has turned out 17 books over the years including "God's Formula for Genuine Happiness" and "Giving Ourselves to Prayer."
But don't be fooled. In addition to being a Godly man and a distinguished professor, Dan Crawford is one funny dude. The book is proof a-plenty.
A few days ago, Bo Brown, pastor of Maylene, Alabama's Community Baptist Church and as nice a brother as you'll ever have, handed me several CDs and one DVD.
"We recorded your sermons from the revival. And Saturday when you did the deacon session, we video-taped it. It's on the DVD."
I was delighted for several reasons. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the churches I pastored were on live television and so every word I uttered, practically, was recorded and preserved. From 1990 onward, the FBC of Kenner, Louisiana, was not broadcasting its services, but they made periodic tapes of the sermons. I suppose they're collecting dust in some box somewhere.
Recently, a friend in Michigan invited me up in early December to do the pastors/spouses banquet for his association. He said, "We'll find a couple of churches for you to preach that Sunday, too." But in order to do that--that is, to let the pastors see what they're getting--he needed me to send him some of my recorded sermons.
Driving home from Lanett, Georgia, Thursday of this week, I decided to see what I'll be sending Director of Ministry Bobby Gilstrap and popped the Sunday morning CD into the player.
These days, according to baseball people, Yankee star Alex Rodriguez is "in a good place." That means he's hitting and fielding well. Having come through tons of personal problems--most of his own doing, if I'm any judge--and physical difficulties, he's now living up to the hype that has surrounded him through the years.
Yankee skipper Joe Girardi said on TV the other night, "Alex is in a good place." A few minutes later, Rodriguez said, "I'm in a good place right now." And sure enough, someone else said it of him a minute or two later. Apparently, it's the hip testimonial du jour.
I identify with the term.
To be "in a good place" to me, as a minister of the Gospel, means you've reached a point in your spiritual and professional development where you are doing your best work.
It will seem strange to some for me to make that kind of assessment about my own preaching. But it's true. Absolutely true.
Later this morning, as I write, I'll walk into the fellowship hall of the First Baptist Church of Lanett, Alabama, and address their deacons in an abbreviated (30 minute) synopsis of what is normally a 2-3 hour training session.
I've done it in an evening and a morning, in two hours, and now in 30 minutes. I've done it in a roomful of deacons from several cities and in one church that had no deacons but wanted their potential leaders to have the training. Flexibility.
Being retired, I'm trying to take most of the invitations that come my way, although obviously if a date is already committed, the answer is "sorry; please ask me next time."
I'm learning what full-time evangelists and consultants know all too well: be prepared for anything. Two weeks ago, the host church put me up in a bed and breakfast. Last week, it was an apartment in the home of a member. This week, it's the Holiday Inn Express. (Next week, I'm home!)
I'm in Alabama, but oddly, it's the Eastern Time Zone. There's a little section of the state that abuts Georgia and that state's time zone seeped over here, I suppose. (They say it goes back to when locals worked at mills just across the Georgia line and in order to avoid confusion about times, this area changed from Central to Eastern time. The mills have all shut down, but the change remains.)
Churches, I'm finding--although I guess I knew this--are all alike and completely different.
I was reflecting this morning on the need for healthy, sound reasoning in the pulpit and the pew from something Paul told his protege Titus.
"The overseer (another word for an elder or pastor) must be above reproach as the steward of God, not self-willed, not angry, not a lover of wine, not pugnacious (one who loves a good fight), and not after anyone's money.
"He should be given to hospitality, a lover of what is good, clear-headed, just, devout, and self-controlled...." (Titus 1:7-8)
The expression "common sense" isn't found there, but it sure is implied, to my thinking.
A friend said, "Our church has women deacons. Do you have a problem with that?"
I said, "I just finished a deacon training thing for a church in South Carolina with women deacons. I've never pastored a church that had them, but I served a couple that could have benefited from some strong, godly women in those meetings!"
I told him, "To me, it's a decision the congregation makes. In the same way the church chooses what role it wants its deacons to fulfill, whether to minister, take a more administrative function, or be the outright leaders."
Common sense. What do we need our deacons to do? The line from Acts 6 says, "Choose seven from among you whom we may put in charge of this need."
What is your church's need? That's usually where you'll want your deacons.
A friend reminded me today of the devastating power of a common sensical word well spoken.
I'm on the side of the church, make no mistake. But at a time when the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is under siege from all sides, forces on the INSIDE threaten to do it the greatest damage.
For my money, the two most destructive forces at work within the congregation of the people of God are the wreckers and the sleepers. The bullies and the wimps. The tyrants and the meek little lambs.
A friend told me a little group ran off the pastor from a church where his mother belongs. The man was a terrific minister, he said, and had the support of the congregation, but a few people made life miserable for him and forced him out. When my friend asked his mother why the "good people" in the congregation didn't rise up and take a stand, she replied:
"Well, someone has to act like a Christian in these things."
That, I suggest to you, is 50 percent of the problem. Confronting evil doers inside the congregation is seen by many as "acting unChristian."
In a typical congregation of Christian people, no matter the denomination, you will find some of the nicest people on the planet. They are peaceful and loving, generous and kind-hearted. They like to serve and give, to teach and help. But there is one thing they shy away from above all else:
Confrontation.
To put it bluntly, they wimp out at the very time when the Lord's church--its ministries, its missions, its outreach, its unity--is under siege.
"Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?" (Psalm 85:6)
Everyone has his own opinion on revival, what it means, how to recognize it when it arrives, how to coax it into being, and what to do then.
Here's mine.
When I was 15 years old, Dad drove my little brother Charlie and me five miles around the highway to get to the back side of our property. Our large, mean, ugly, belligerent (get the idea?) bull had broken out of the pasture and a neighbor had penned him up. Without a truck to haul him in--we were not your typical idea of a prosperous farm family--Charlie and I were going to have to lead him across the fields and through the woods back home.
Dad tied a rope around the bull's horns and handed me the end. "Charlie, you push. Joe, you lead."
Oh yeah.
That bull did not want to go anywhere. Pulling on the rope to get him started was something like tugging on a Greyhound bus to start it rolling. To say Charlie was pushing is not exactly right. Getting anywhere close to that animal's back legs was risking one's life. But we did the best we could.
After a bit, the bull got the idea and began to trot. Since he was headed in the right direction, we were pleased and ran along beside him.
Then, he decided to leave us behind.
The sign in front of a Birmingham area repair shop seems to be part of a continuing conversation: "We're Open. All is Well."
In last Sunday's Parade magazine, actress Sela Ward talks about turning 50. (We all should look so good at the half-century mark!) For her birthday bash, her family wrote on the barn: "Sela is turning 50--it's all good."
A personalized license plate this morning read: "IBAOK." We take that to mean the owner is claiming he/she is "A-OK."
Good for them. It's great to feel good and good to feel great.
Many a church member will tell you their favorite song in the church hymnal is the uplifting "It is Well With My Soul."
Come on now.
Let's be honest here.
All is not well, not in the world, not in this country, and to our great sorrow and ultimate shame, not even in Christendom.
There's trouble in River City; Houston, we have a problem.
There's trouble inside the house of God.
Georgia fans have a right to complain over the penalty their football team was given last Saturday afternoon as their guy scored with about a minute left in the game with our LSU Tigers.
Following the Georgia TD, the fans were ecstatic and the players were jubilant, running around hugging one another.
That's when the referee threw the flag and penalized Georgia for a weird infraction (only added to the football rules in recent years) known as "excessive celebration."
This meant the ensuing kickoff to LSU would take place from deep in Georgia territory (can't recall the exact numbers here, but that's irrelevant) and would give LSU an extra advantage. If you watched the game, you know what happened: a few plays later, LSU crossed the goal line with a TD of their own, and ended up winning the game.
Incidentally, the LSU team was likewise flagged for excessive celebration. By then, however, the clock had almost wound down, making it meaningless.
Now, LSU fans--responding to their Georgia friends' complaint that that penalty might have turned the game around--respond that when running back Charles Scott made the final 20 (or so) yard TD run, he could have just as easily have trotted another 20 or 30 yards. It appears no one could have stopped him and he could easily have still been running a week later.
But that does not ease Georgia's pain. To its credit, the Southeast Conference has issued apologies this week. The commissioner promises to caution their referees not to be over-zealous in enforcing a rule intended to stop taunting.
Some of us had a little fun with the "excessive celebration" thing. On Facebook, I wrote something like: "I think I've figured out what happened with that penalty. After all, who are the most phobic on the subject of 'excessive celebrations?' Clearly, the referees were Episcopalians! (Or maybe members of some First Baptist churches we know.)" I added, "Anyone smiling?" in an attempt to keep anyone from taking it all too seriously.
Among the interesting comments was this: "We know the referees were not Baptists because in the end zone they were raising both hands."
I'm away from home in revival this week. As usual, I brought along a number of books to read, several Bibles, and plenty of notepaper for working on sermons, drawing cartoons, and such. One of the books was a western.
"Lonely on the Mountain" is a "Sackett" novel by the king of westerns, Louis L'Amour. I picked it up somewhere along the way and have been reading it in the cracks of time when my brain needs a rest from heavier matters.
Something about this novel surprised me, and provides an insight into a matter we pastors face in sermon-building and preaching.
It's a great story, as westerns go. L'Amour in his prime was as good as they come in delivering a tale of the old west. The Sacketts are a fictitious Tennessee mountain clan that has moved west. The various brothers and generations provided L'Amour material for 15 or 20 novels over the decades.
In this story, one of the Sackett brothers sends a cryptic SOS to his family from a remote Canadian village. His kinfolk come a-running. Most of the book details their adventures as they pull together supplies, cross prairies driving a herd, encounter Indians and outlaws, and gradually try to piece together what their brother meant by his plea for help.
The plot thickens, as the saying goes, as it builds toward a climatic showdown. And that's where the problem with the book arose.
Finally, the rescuers arrive at the Canadian outpost on page 185 of the 194-page book. At this point, I have decided this must be part of a two-volume telling of this tale because there is no way this story can be resolved in the remaining 9 pages.
But it was.
Actually, the story just fizzled out. After building us up and teasing us along, Louis L'Amour punted. In the final 9 pages, the disparate clan members meet up and learn the problem in the village, have their obligatory gun battle, learn the answer to some of the riddles that have puzzled them during their drive west, and close the story.
It was awful.
Clearly, L'Amour got bored with his story and decided to put it out of its misery. His readers be hanged.
What I wish he had done was to lay it aside for a few days or weeks or even longer and work on something else before returning to it.
[This is a repeat of an article we did in July of 2008. Please feel
free to pass it along to your church leadership. There is no more
timely subject or greater need in our congregations.]
Ask any church leader why America--or the churches in general or a denomination in particular or all Christians--does not (do not) have revival and the answers will usually come out to something like: "We're not praying," or "We're not praying hard enough," or "This takes prayer and fasting."
Today, I spent an hour on the internet reading some of the hundreds of websites on the subject of revival. Those that attempt to cover the subject of why we are not experiencing revival usually attribute it to sin, complacency, or prayerlessness.
Maybe they're right, but it seems to me those answers are missing the point.
The reason we're not having revival may indeed be that we're not praying for one. After all, Scripture assures us that "you have not because you ask not." (James 4:2)
But that just leads to the question of why we're not praying for revival. The answer, I strongly suggest, is simple: we don't want a revival. We like things the way they are.
I said it and will stand by it: we do not want revival. The churches don't, the church members don't, and very few of the pastors want a genuine Heaven-sent revival.
After all, revival means change, and we don't want change. We're too comfortable the way things are at the present.
I used to have an elderly man in my last church who showed up for services from time to time mainly because of his wife. Once when I was visiting in their home, I learned that five years earlier, he had had a heart bypass operation. His wife said, "And pastor, the doctor ordered him to walk several blocks a day, but he won't do it."
I tried to shame him a little. After all, the walking was for his own good and might prolong his life. He said, "Preacher, the reason I don't walk is simple. Walking interferes with my routine."
His wife scoffed, "What routine! Pastor, he goes to the casino!"
He lived two more years, still spending his days with the slot machines.
That, in a word, is why the great masses of Christians do not pray for nor desire revival: it would interfere with their routine.
A friend who pastors a church not far from my home posted the following on his Facebook wall, inviting his friends to finish it: "Saturdays are for_______."
I wrote, "You know the answer to that, Craig. You're a pastor and you know that Saturdays are for worrying about Sunday and fretting over the sermon."
All too true, I'm afraid.
Recently--again on Facebook--a pastor friend in Ruston, Louisiana, wrote on a Thursday, "Sermon finished. Heading home."
What I wondered was whether he continued to fret with that sermon in his conscious and subconscious mind for the next 72 hours until preaching time arrived. I know I would have.
A young pastor whom I used to mentor some years back said in a recent phone conversation that sermon delivery is still a challenge for him. I suggested that he finish the sermon by Friday and then go for a walk or a drive and preach it a couple of times. I was surprised by his answer.
"The problem," he said, "is the sermon is never finished by then. In fact, it goes right on growing and developing through Saturday night. Sometimes, it's Sunday morning when the 'aha!' moment comes and I see what I've been missing in this message."
I understand. Most preachers do.
One more reason to pray for your pastor.
In the last few years of my ministry, as I've found myself addressing lots of first-time groups--something a pastor of a congregation rarely gets to do--several stories and quotes and points keep coming to the forefront.
Or, if you prefer: in my old age, I repeat myself a lot.
I like the first way of saying it better.
One expression which I now find myself working into revival sermons, pastors conferences, and now, onto my Facebook wall goes something like this: "The pastor's job is not to make the congregation happy. In fact, his role is about as different from that as it's possible to get. The Heavenly Father sends pastors to make the congregation healthy and to make HIM happy. When church members insist that he is there to serve and please them, they are usurping the role of God."
Recently, I posted that on Facebook and drew a mixture of reactions.
Of the dozen or so comments, most were variations of "amen" or "I wish every church member knew that." But one was different.
A longtime friend who made a career of campus ministry and along the way pastored a few churches and served on the occasional church staff, said, "But the opposite is true, also, Joe."
I took that to mean that Bob Ford was pointing out that pastors should not think the congregation exists to make them happy either. A good point, Robert.
Not that most pastors would ever think that for a moment. But let's admit the obvious here: some pastors have been royally spoiled.
Dear Pastor, you're a wonderful man of God. My family loves your preaching. However, there are a few things I'd like to call to your attention that will help you improve your sermons and your leadership....
What follows is a half-dozen pages of critiques, criticism, and suggestions. Pressure from the pew.
Some years back, in his book by that title, Marshall Shelley called these people "Well-Intentioned Dragons."
These preacher-critics in the congregation mean well, I suppose--Marshall gave them the benefit of the doubt; I'm not entirely convinced--but they wear their preachers out and use them up quicker than anyone in the church.
In fact, I'll go so far as to say that not only do the other members not know what these benevolent-serpents are doing, but they would be upset if they knew.
A little group of members of your church are harassing your pastor and doing it in loving words.
Here's what happened to a local pastor just the other day.